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Saturday, February 16, 2013

Linux Mint 14 "Nadia" XFCE Review: Simply the best!

Simply put, it has become really boring to review any Linux Mint distro as I need to write the same words again and again. Things work so perfect with Mint and honestly, I haven't seen any other Linux distro better than Mint in terms of stability and performance. Last year when I reviewed Linux Mint 13 XFCE (the long term support one), I coined the release as the best of the year for any XFCE distro. Same words go for Linux Mint 14 XFCE as well, it just only got better from the last release.

In nutshell, Linux Mint 14 XFCE has just got almost everything that you need from a good distro and it offers much more. It is lightweight, detects hardware impeccably, gives correct resolution and is buttery smooth to use. There is hardly anything that goes wrong with the Linux Mint release. Now my good words are exhausted and lets talk something not so good about Linux Mint. I guess, it might be bothering some of you too.

Yes, I am talking of the Linux Mint artwork. To me, it has become really boring to see similarly designed monotonous desktop that Linux Mint is offering - it is too similar to Windows and I have started hating it! I agree, technically it is designed well and polished but doesn't please the eyes any more after watching the same thing getting repeated from Maya to Nadia! Possibly a change in design will do a whole lot of good to such an amazing distro.

Anyway, this time when I installed 32-bit Linux Mint 14 XFCE in my Asus K54C laptop with 2.2 Ghz Core i3 processor and 2 GB RAM and saw the same Maya XFCE interface, I decided to give it a face lift. This time I went with the Linux Mint 11 Green theme. A green wallpaper (provided by default with Linux Mint 14 - interestingly, I noticed some new wallpapers in there!), transparent panels, a conky and compiz, along with 15 minutes of effort gave me a refreshed Linux Mint "Green", my preferred eco-friendly distro! My laptop battery runs at least 30-40 minutes longer with Linux Mint XFCE than any other Linux distro, barring Fuduntu.

I guess other than what I wrote above, there is nothing much to write. We all know how good Linux Mint is and how amazing it works. Once I shifted to Linux Mint from Ubuntu, I really could not go back to Ubuntu for my regular use. Anyway, it is all the same as my Maya XFCE review, but still summarizing everything in bullet points:

ISO size: 914 MB, slightly higher than Linux Mint 13 XFCE (850 MB)

Linux Kernel: 3.5.0

Desktop: XFCE 4.10

File Manager: Thunar 1.4.0 (expected 1.6.2 here!)

Hardware: Wifi, resolution, LAN, touchpad, printer, everything works by default without any pain

Multimedia codecs and Adobe flashplugin are in-built and you can just boot Linux Mint XFCE and start watching your favorite movie or play your favorite band or live stream your favorite youtube channel.

Java, OpenJDK version 7, is provided and all your java based programs function well right out of the box. Settings integrated to a single application as well as separate settings are also available, just like any other good Linux distro. It helps for newbies to have integrated settings.

Auto-mount option is also available (not present in all XFCE distros). Auto-mount surely increases productivity and relieves the pain of typing user password every time an USB is plugged in or an unmounted drive is clicked.

Installation
Installation is pretty simple, just like Ubuntu and it takes about 15-30 minutes (depending on your internet connection) to get Linux Mint 14 installed. Usual queries on language, location, keyboard type and language, hard drive where the installation would be, user login creation, etc. are the usual steps.

Repository
Ubuntu Quantal is the primary repository along with some native Nadia applications. A simple to use Software manager (version 7.4.4) with clearly categorized application list is the primary GUI. Synaptic package manager is also there for those who are comfortable with synaptic. In my experience, having a simple software manager is actually helpful and intuitive for new Linux users.

Performance
From Mint 13 XFCE to Mint 14 XFCE, performance actually got better. To boot the default desktop, it takes about 120-140 MB RAM and 1-5% CPU with task manager running. Even with compiz running and wobbly windows and other effects on, it never consumed more than 200 MB RAM - even when I am rotating the desktop cube like a maniac! XFCE hardly gets better on any other distro other than Linux Mint in performance!

Final Words
Linux Mint 14 XFCE is 10/10 distro for me - has all the applications that you need, everything just works fine, refined and polished, no stability issue, offers superb performance and great juice saver for laptops! But, the same design getting repeated release after release is simply boring! In next Linux Mint release (hopefully in April-May 2013), I am praying for at least some change in terms of looks.

Otherwise, a perfect distro for newbies as well as advanced users. Linux Mint 14 XFCE is very stable and great for productivity purposes. To me, it is one of the best distros available right now and a must try for any Linux enthusiast. Absolutely recommended!

You can download Linux Mint 14 XFCE (32-bit and 64-bit editions) from here.

Java is required for some programs to run, like my Sify broadband dialer requires Java to connect to internet. Normal programs like browsers, chat and other applications don't require Java and hence, you can safely uninstall the Java present by default in Linux Mint 14. Just search in Software center for openJDK and uninstall it.Thanks,Arindam

good work arindam! but "... haven't seen any other Linux distro better than Mint in terms of stability and performance..." is a bit over the board. please try stella, solusos, centos or debian stable (or even testing)!

I was using CentOS for sometime but got bored of it quickly, within a couple of months apps seemed to be so antiquated. Same goes with Debian 6, will give a shot to wheezy after sometime. Solus is same as Debian, only re-packaged with a Mint touch. Good, I used it for sometime because of Gnome 2 shell. I am really a distro hopper and can't use any distro more than 2-3 months continuously. Only distro I stick to for my Asus 1101HA netbook is Linux Mint 13 XFCE since its release because given limited specs of the netbook, none of the "full fledged" distros like Ubuntu, Solus, Fedora, etc. run well on it. Even Xubuntu 12.04.1 dragged a lot on the machine. However, Linux Mint 13 XFCE works on it like a charm. I tried briefly Linux Mint 14 KDE on it as well (on dual boot), even it worked really well - didn't actually get any other KDE distro to run on the same machine (didn't try Arch+KDE though). On a high end machine, it doesn't matter which distro you are using till it offers stability. I have a couple of other laptops (core i3 and core i7 3rd gen), both of them run anything and everything you throw at them.

So, based on experience I had with my netbook, safely, Linux Mint is one of the most efficient distros I have seen and I didn't note till date any kind of stability issues (like something crashing in the background, etc.). Debian wheezy XFCE too runs well on (expected it would run, isn't it? Debian is lighter than Ubuntu). I could not try CentOS on it as it doesn't have a CD/DVD drive and CentOS didn't install in my case from pendrive. I tried unetbootin, USB image writer & pendrivelinux USB creator.

Long story short, Linux Mint works wherever I tried without any hassles. Can't say the same about any other Linux distro. You can check my list of reviews - I've tried a lot of them :).

Arindam Sen, I enjoy your reviews. I multi-boot various distros but I don't really "distro-hop" -- I try to keep each installation for a number of years to really get a feel for how things go with the distro over the long run. I ran both Mint and Ubuntu LTS versions side-by-side for some years, but finally decided to drop Mint -- it's a great distro, but I guess I don't share your love for it. I won't say that any one distro is "best" because so much depends on what the user wants, but for various reasons, the ones I'm using now are Debian Wheezy, Ubuntu LTS, openSUSE 12.2, Fedora 17 and 18, and Sabayon. I've also got an installation of the latest Chakra -- just wanted to see what that one's all about. Others that I've run for periods of two years or more include Mepis, PCLinuxOS, and SalineOS. Mepis and PCLOS for much longer than two years, actually. A few others. Keep up the good work, I've been stopping in here regularly and I think what you're doing is great for Linux.

Of course, in the case of a distro like Fedora, I don't keep the same installation for a number of years, but what I meant is that I try to keep following the distro's releases over a number of years in a case like that. So I've tried to keep both of the latest odd- and even-numbered Fedora releases since F14, alternating between KDE and GNOME. As for Debian, I've been running Debian Stable since something like 2006, but with Squeeze and Wheezy I installed both during the later part of the Testing stage. I'll keep Wheezy at least until the next Testing has "frozen." Just to give you an idea of how I'm doing things here. Ubuntu, I don't follow the 6-month cycle at all, only LTS releases. Same with when I used Mint. Finally, the one distro I've been most impressed with lately is openSUSE, but I've only been running it for about a year and I want to see how I feel about it after another year or two. Sabayon, also very good so far, but still less than a full year with it so far. Sorry to ramble on so, but I thought perhaps you might be interested in my point of view as someone who multi-boots various distros for years at a time.

Thanks MALsPA for sharing your experience. It is interesting. Which flavor of OpenSUSE you are using? I found the KDE one to be good but didn't like the Gnome version. It was a nightmare working on Gnome 3 desktop in OpenSUSE for me :).

Glad to know you check in my blog and hopefully I can expect you to share some of your experience with the new releases. I am really impressed by the wide span of distros you are using. I normally stick to Linux Mint 13 for my regular work (heavily customized as per my needs and requirements) and I have a Archlinux installed in one of my P4 PCs. I have a laptop dedicated to Linux testing which gets a new Linux distro installation every week :).

Thanks again for sharing your experience and hope to hear from you more in future.

A new installation every week, wow! I don't know how you find the energy or the motivation, but I'm sure that many people benefit from your doing that and writing about it.

To answer your question, I'm using KDE in openSUSE, and also Openbox. I'm quite comfortable using GNOME Shell, but haven't tried it in openSUSE.

I have installed Chakra since I wrote last; also, I downloaded Bridge Linux (Xfce version), played around with a live session, and looked over your review of that distro. I think I may try an installation of Bridge fairly soon, as it looks like it might be a better fit for me than Manjaro, ArchBang, or Arch itself, but I'll also take a look at what you wrote about Manjaro and ArchBang.

thanks for the well thought response. there's +/- to every distro. but centos and debian are the least troublesome distros out there. granted, it's you might need to fiddle around to put their isos into usb drives, but it's possible and worth it.

btw, distrohopping is a phase in every linux enthusiast till one knows the vast multitude is meaningless.

I am somewhat new to linux. I have read a lot of positive reviews of Linux Mint but I am confused between Cinnamon, MATE and XFCE.Can you tell me the pros and cons of each? Is it possible to install all and choose/switch between them or does it require a full reinstall to change from Cinnamon to XFCE or vice versa.

XFCE and Mate offers better performance than Cinnamon, if you speak only of performance. In terms of customization, I would put XFCE ahead of the remaining two. But, quite a few cinnamon themes are available in gnome-look and possibly you can try them. You can install all three of them and boot whatever you wish to use.

Fedora runs really well with XFCE. And as Manmath has mentioned, if you install all three, you distro might be a little heavy. If you can live with it, you can install all desktop environments you wish.

I am using Linux Mint 13 XFCE on my Asus 1101HA 1.33 Ghz Intel Atom processor with 1 GB RAM. Mint runs very fast on it, I can multitask reasonably and watching videos and movies is not a problem on Linux Mint. Please give it a shot. I would recommend installation via pen drive instead of windows installer. Let me know if you face any issues.

"Compared with a regular installation, a Wubi installation faces some limitations. Hibernation is not supported and the filesystem is more vulnerable to hard reboots.[1] Also, if the Windows drive is unmounted uncleanly (Windows crash, power failure, etc.), Ubuntu will not be able to mount the Windows drive and boot until Windows has successfully booted and shut down. If the Windows system cannot be booted after the crash, the user also cannot boot Ubuntu.

Performance related to hard-disk access is also slightly slower, more so if the disk image file is fragmented, on a Wubi install compared to a normal one.[1]

Since Wubi installs root.disk on top of the Windows file system which could technically become corrupted and even prevent Windows from booting. Running chkdsk /r (may take a significant amount of time to run) to fix the damaged file system and shutting down Windows cleanly may help.[3]"

First of all I would like to say that you reviews are awesome :) I have a amd fusion netbook which has a 1.6 ghz dual core processor and a 4 gb ram. What would you recommend I install, the 32 bit version or the 64 bit version ?

Given your dual core processors, 32-bit version will work better. Linux Mint has pae kernel mostly and hence, is able to detect even more than 4 GB RAM. In my testing I have seen that 32-bit x86 versions consume at least 30% less CPU and RAM than 64 bit version.

Hi, arindam sen, I enjoy reading your reviews and I also like your enthusiasm for the Open Source world. There are just two things about Linux Mint that I think should be mentioned here: Nadia is not an LTS release, and Linux Mint has only a suboptimal (to say the least) upgrade policy. In fact, their official upgrade policy is to wipe out the hard disk and re-install everything again. While that won't bother enthusiasts, it is a complete showstopper for regular users. An LTS release will "protect" users from re-installing their systems for at least three to five years (depending on the respective LTS distribution). So I think you should NOT recommend Mint Nadia for everyone.

The other thing about Mint that eventually made me delete it from all systems where I used was the constant unattainability of Mint's repository/update servers. Mint (13 in my case) wanted to update itself almost on a daily basis, but the updates always failed because some of Mint's repository servers could never be reached.

I now use Xubuntu 12.04 LTS instead and am very pleases with that distribution -- it's an LTS AND its repository servers never failed me. ;-) Anyway, keep up the great work and all the best wishes from Germany!

Hi Winni:I agree with you. Changing distro every 18 months may not be of fun for many. And Linux Mint is not that good at upgrade - something or the other breaks while upgrading rendering the distro unbootable. Linux Mint 13 or Maya is an LTS release with 5 years of support. But, not Nadia. I guess the problem you faced in Maya installation might be of unavailable repository servers. Just simply by changing the repository servers for Mint repo, that kind of problem can be easily avoided. However, Xubuntu 12.04 LTS is also good and one of my favorite distros.

hi arindam. can u help me about the conky lua there i have install and run perfectly except the weather not functioning although i change the LQBA to my country spec and also the internet i change to wlan but nothing happen...thanks 4 ur time...by the way im using fedora 17 gnome.

actually i am a fuduntu user, but lately i m thinking of changing this distro as i find that many applications that are available in ubuntu based os are not there in fuduntu like chmsee(this app is a must for me, as i have lots to read) is there any way i can get these ubuntu based applications.........i m also in a dilemma ie. which os to chose in the laptop which I hope to buy soon (lenovo thinkpad e430). i m just caught up in the matter of battery life vs applications

Actually Linux Mint also supports very good battery life. I am pretty happy with Linux Mint 13 XFCE that I am using on my Asus netbook. If you don't like Fuduntu, possibly Linux Mint 13 XFCE should be the next obvious choice for you in terms of battery life.

very deep and nice review arindam. hey i have some questions regarding linux mint.i have always used puppy linux and as we know in puppy we work as a superuser or root, hence it has almost no restrictions and it feels little bit free to work with it, is mint also gives such feel to work with , or are there too many restrictions and frequent password needs to do simple works also?

1. is linux mint has all drivers inbuilt like video,sound,internet and other drivers.?

2.which desktop environment is good for mint kde,mate or cinnamon which one will you suggest.

3.can i install mint on a pendrive like other small distros.

4. hows the performance of mint? is it better than ubuntu, or any close to distros like puppy linux?

5.does mint includes all office tool. and is it really a complete operating system like just installing and start working type?

6.can it run on any os around if installed in a pendrive? any booting problems with different hardwares?

7. do you really recommend mint for using as a main and as a full fledged operating system?

First let's make it clear: Linux Mint is a complete distro and Puppy is a minimalistic one. Next to answer your questions:

1. Mint has all drivers inbuilt and perhaps the best in recognizing hardware like wifi, sound, touchpad, etc. without any manual intervention. It just works! And is the best that Linux has to offer, arguably!

2. I prefer XFCE as it is both functional and lightweight. You can choose any one of them based on your taste, comfort level and machine specs.

3. Yes, mint can be used from a pendrive as well just like Puppy.

4. Mint performs better than Ubuntu in my performance tests. You can search my blog for Mint vs Ubuntu comparison. Puppy is minimalistic and consumes lower resources. However, Linux Mint offers more functionality and is a complete OS.

5. Mint includes complete office tool and even I have installed MS Office 2010 in it. It works right out of the box.

6. I haven't encountered any booting problems even on a P4 (I used XFCE).

7. I am using Linux Mint as the only operating system in my production laptop for last few years. In my last upgrade I removed Windows 7 as well as there is hardly any requirement for the same. Most commonly required Windows softwares can be used via playonlinux and it serves me well.

I am using Linux Mint 13 XFCE on my Asus 1101HA netbook with Intel Atom 1.38 Ghz processor and 1 GB RAM without any issues. I guess, your netbook is more powerful and modern than mine. So, I think it answers your first question.

Ubuntu is now a bit heavy and won't run well on anything less than a dual core laptop or PC.

I agree, even for me the choice was between XFCE & LXDE desktops. I chose XFCE as it fitted my requirements. Also, between Xubuntu and Linux Mint XFCE, my preference is towards Linux Mint as it just works on any system you throw at it. Performance and stability offered by both are same.

I guess I have a slight bias towards Linux Mint and hence, would recommend Linux Mint 13 XFCE to you :). Even if you decide to use Xubuntu, please install Xubuntu 12.04.2. Both Linux Mint 13 & Xubuntu 12.04.2 are supported till April 2017.

I too have been trying to get a distro working well on my NC110P.The problem is that the P model has an Intel GMA 3600 graphics and driver support is incredibly sketchy. Whilst you'll find reasonable support for Windows and MeeGo, any other distro seems to have problems. The problem is that the drivers are closed source, and not owned by Intel. I truly can't believe there isn't better linux driver support and I gather even the windows drivers are not utilising the full potential of the hardware. Have a google and see that many people are complaining about Poulsbo - http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTMyODA

So far I've tried,

Jolicloud 1.2 - stuck on 800x600MeeGo 1.2 - nice hardware support, but I disliked the distroUbuntu 12.04.2 - dark screen, unusable (couldn't even get the cedarview packages to install)Ubuntu 13.04 (latest) - high res, nice and bright display, but slow and no brightness control - still not identifying the gma 3600Linux Mint 14 - didn't even install lmaoFedora 18 - this has worked best for me so far.

Have you tried LM 13 XFCE? I am using it in my Asus 1101HA with Intel GMD 500 and blacklisting the poulsbo worked for m e to get correct resolution. http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in/2012/04/solved-precise-pangolin-asus-eee-pc.html

Further, LM 13 and 14 XFCE doesn't require any of this and by default recognize the resolution in my Asus EeePC.

I just keep coming back to MintXFCE 13. The only problem I've had is when I installed Nemo as my file manager, next time I booted up, all I got was the background, no panel or anything. So I thought I'd try Ubuntu 12.10. Nothing but problems and kept crashing. So I installed Mint KDE 13. I like the KDE interface, but again it kept crashing and was so slow,so back to Mint XFCE. This time I will not try installing Nemo.

One query, if installing Dropbox I notice it loads a lot of other dependencies, will these affect my installation, and /or give me any other problems.

Please let me check on the dropbox dependencies today and get back to you. I guess, LM 13 XFCE is one of the better distros I have used. Actually I like Thunar and hence, haven't tried installing Nemo. Will try in virtualbox.